Weekly Anime Impressions – Summer 2014 – Week 11

Fall is almost here and I’m somewhat swamped with course work.

Note: This is probably the last Weekly Anime Impressions post I will make until the next season starts. I will be posting my final episode impressions of Hanayamata and Free Eternal Summer separately.

Glasslip

The focus is now on Kakeru and Touko with two more episodes remaining. I liked how Hina had to pretend that Touko came back and eat all that food. I know, it’s painful, but at least she survived it. Still, I have a feeling that we are getting closer to finding out the mystery behind the fragments of the future. It seems that Kakeru fears that he will be alone again if he has to accompany his mother in her concert tour. This can explain why he is afraid of relationships. His extended periods of loneliness have made him feel uneasy about progressing his relationship with Touko. Even so, I think it will get resolved once he decides to confront it.

While other couples only received some screen time, it seems that we are finally seeing some resolution with Hiro doing his best to win over Sacchi’s heart and Yuki realizing that Yanagi was attractive all along. Because of this, I think this episode was a noticeable improvement and that is saying a lot since this show spent most of its time trying to figure out what it wants to be.

Hanayamata

From the start, I thought things would go well for the whole team since they manage to get a spot in the festival and even finished the final recording of the song (lyrics and everything). Sadly, the harsh reality of Hana being a foreigner has settled in. Her mother couldn’t bear living alone, so she came to Japan to announce that she wants to live a new life with her daughter and they are moving back to the good old United States of America effective immediately. Hana couldn’t bring herself to tell her friends since she was afraid that they would become upset.

While it’s sad to see Hana go since she is the driving force of the group, but at the same time, I just can’t picture her surviving in America again as she would have to start over since she apparently has no friends over there. I think her parents will eventually realize this and perhaps let her study abroad or finish the school year in Japan. After all, there is a hint that she makes a surprise return as seen in the preview. Then again, I don’t see why her mother absolutely needs to have Hana move back since she could have used video conferencing (such as Skype, Google Hangouts or Facetime) in order to keep in touch with her. Sure, it’s not the same as interacting in real life, but her mother could always take time off to visit her. Since the manga is still ongoing, I highly doubt the creator would write off Hana’s character from the story.

Aside from that, Hana resembles her mother quite a lot.

Free Eternal Summer

Despite Iwatobi’s win, it seems that Haruka still haven’t gotten over what happened during regionals. Now it’s affecting his performance, which causes all his friends to become worried. To me, it seems that we are seeing a flashback of Rin from the first season, but instead with Haruka being unsure about the future. It seems that he is pushing everyone away, even Makoto who takes things in his own hand.

On the other hand, I don’t think he can go on like this forever and he has to decide eventually. It’s true that once he graduates, everyone will go in separate directions. However, it’s apparent that Rin wants to swim together with him on an international stage, which can explain why he wants to take him to Australia. This makes me wonder if Haruka will finally resolve his uneasiness about what he wants to do after graduation with this trip during the weeklong break. Hopefully, this will resolve it. ¶